


What I'm Seeing

by magniloquentChanteuse



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Spider-verse spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 17:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magniloquentChanteuse/pseuds/magniloquentChanteuse
Summary: Miles Morales meets the previous Spider-Man's widow and they have a conversation they should have had a year ago.





	What I'm Seeing

Miles hears her voice even over the sound of his own humming.

 

“Spider-Man.” It’s quiet— spoken softly and at a distance. His eyes skim the nearby rooftops and he finds them all empty, but the voice comes again. “Is that you?” He looks down and there, far below, is a woman. She’s staring up at him from the sidewalk, ignoring the evening pedestrians bustling around her. She’s bundled up in a coat and a hat, but with her face angled up towards him the way it is, he recognizes her immediately.

 

Mary Jane Parker, he thinks with a sharp twinge of guilt. He eases over the side of the building, debating whether or not he should drop to the ground, but she forstalls him with another soft-spoken rush of words that his super hearing catches easily.

 

“No, no, stay there,” She says, and he knows now that Peter must have had super hearing, too. It’s obvious that she knows he can hear her just fine. “I’ll come to you. Please, just… wait for me.”

 

Miles flashes a thumbs up down at her, but he isn’t sure that she sees it because she’s rushing inside the building he’s perched on just a moment later. He gulps, spinning back around to face the access door on the far edge of the roof as he waits for her. Mrs. Parker, he thinks again, memories turning painfully towards the Peter of his universe. It’s been a whole year since Spider-Man had died, but he still finds himself flinching at the memories of that night, sometimes. He doubts that Mary Jane was having a much easier time of it. Peter had been a stranger to Miles, but that had been her  _ husband. _

 

The door opens and Mary Jane steps out, a look of desperation quickly replaced with relief when she spots him perched on the edge of the roof. He lurches to his feet, trying to look like he’s at ease. There’s no point in starting off on a bad foot, he decides. After all, she’d known the last Spider-Man intimately: she has high expectations of Miles, no doubt. Maybe higher than all the rest of New York.

 

“Mrs. Parker,” He gives her a nod, voice deepening a little as he tries to sound older. No one has called him on it  _ yet _ , but he tends to get strange looks, he has to admit. He laments this creaky voice he’s been saddled with. Puberty, he thinks disparagingly with a minor shake of his head before turning his attention back to the woman who’s crossing the roof to close the space between them. “How are you doin’ on this fine night?”

 

“Good, I’m good,” Yup— there’s that weird expression. She can hear the youth in his voice, no doubt. Miles grimaces. “Thank you for waiting.”

 

“No problem,” Miles assures her, tilting his head a little to one side. “It’s probably about time we met, huh?”

 

Mary Jane cracks a smile. “About time,” She agrees, her voice a little softer. “It seems… proper, doesn’t it? That we should know each other. Seeing as you’ve taken over for my husband and all.”

 

Miles flinches despite himself. If Mary Jane notices, she doesn’t say anything about it.

 

“Right,” He agrees, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “How are you, uh… are you doin’ okay? As far as…” What is he saying? Crap, this is a bad way to start a conversation, Miles, bad start. Fix it! “You alright?” He finishes weakly, disappointing himself miserably. 

 

“I’m… getting through it.” She surprises him with what he suspects is an honest answer, her red-stained lips twisting up wryly. “It’s not easy. I always tried to prepare myself, I knew it was a possibility, but I… wasn’t ready.”

 

“No,” Miles agrees, eyes dropping to the gravelly rooftop. “I don’t think any of us were.”

 

“Did you…” It’s Mary Jane’s turn, now, to hesitate, stumbling over her words. “Did you know him?”

 

Miles shakes his head. “Not really. Not… for long.” There’s a few beats of silence and Miles realizes that she’s waiting for him to explain. How can he not? It was her husband, he tells himself again. Peter was her husband. She deserves to know anything she wants to know. “I actually… I met him the night he died.”

 

“Oh,” Mary Jane’s voice is a pained whisper, now, but it carries to his ears with such startling clarity that it sounds as if she’s speaking right into it. “I didn’t know that.”

 

“It wasn’t a part of the press conference,” Miles replies dryly, then immediately regrets it. Cracking jokes with the last Spider-Man’s widow? That doesn’t seem appropriate. She smiles again, though, looking mildly amused despite the lingering pain on her face.

 

“No, I guess not,” She agrees, coming to lean against the wall next to him. “You Spider-Men are all very private guys, aren’t you?”

 

“And girls,” Miles corrects her, garnering a look of curiosity that he dismisses with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it. Point being, I didn’t know him for long, but I did meet him. He was… he seemed like a good guy. I was excited to get to know him better.”

 

“Can I ask how you met?” Mary Jane is staring at him with searching eyes, her gaze flickering back and forth between the eyes on his mask. Miles swallows, wishing they had stuck with the jokes.

 

“I was, uh. I had just found out about my powers, and I came across him fighting… fighting the Green Goblin. He saved me, and…” His head spins at the memory: so vivid he can practically feel the way his senses had shivered and spun in reaction to Spider-Man. “We were the same. We could both tell right away: we were the same. So he offered to, uh, teach me the ropes.” He grins weakly, amused despite himself at the way the multiverse seemed to have conspired to hold Peter to that promise even though he had died before he could uphold it. His smile falls quickly, though. It’s not a happy memory. “There was an explosion, though, just a few minutes later. He was badly wounded. I only had a minute to talk to him before…”

 

“So it was the explosion?” Mary Jane asks him, and he realizes very suddenly that no one ever found out the truth of what had happened to Spider-Man. Everyone knows that he died, but no one knows how. Miles turns fully to meet Mary Jane’s pained expression.

 

“It was the Kingpin,” he tells her, voice serious. “Peter survived the explosion but the Kingpin found him.” Miles can see the flash of agony lance through her face before she turns away, fingers pressed over her lips. His resolve weakens and his shoulders slump. “Mrs. Parker… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

 

She shakes her head, flashing him a sharp glare with teary eyes. Her hand drops back to fist at her side. “No, Spider-Man,” She replies vehemently. “I wanted to know. Thank you for telling me.” She takes a moment, and Miles can  _ hear _ her swallow. Geeze, spider powers are so weird. “So Wilson Fisk killed my husband, then invited me to the benefit for him,” her face twists with disgust before suddenly clearing. “And then you got him arrested.”

 

“I couldn’t let him get away with that,” Miles offers uncertainly. “With what he did to Peter, and what he  _ wanted _ to do to all of Brooklyn…” He shakes his head. “I had to stop him.”

 

“And you did.” She reaches out and touches his arm in a clear expression of gratitude. “Thanks to you, Wilson Fisk won’t see the light of day for a long time. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

 

“Just doin’ my job,” Miles replies, looking away from her again, up at the sky. It’s dark, now, but there are no stars. There usually aren’t, in the city.

 

“No, Spider-Man.” Her firm tone brings him back down, and he blinks at her through the mask. “This… it’s not  _ just your job _ . I won’t try and talk you out of saying that to anyone else. You can say it to all of New York, if you want: it’s your right to put on whatever face you want, to them. But don’t do that to me, because I  _ know _ . When people look at superheroes, they see what they expect to see. They  _ hear  _ what they  _ expect _ to hear. But I’ve known Peter Parker since we were both little kids, and when I look at you, I know what I’m seeing.” 

 

Miles meets Mary Jane’s eyes and finds them so startlingly clear, so breathtakingly  _ aware _ , that he’s stricken silent, unable to refute her as she continues.

 

“Peter became Spider-Man when he was fifteen years old,” Mary Jane told him, and something in the back of Mile’s brain pings with recognition. He’d heard someone say that, after everyone had found out who Spider-Man had been. “No one knew. They assumed he was a fully grown man, and they’re going to assume the same thing about you. But I can see you, Spider-Man.” Her expression softens, but her words continue to strike him like physical blows. “The mask and the suit don’t fool me because I’ve seen a teenage Spider-Man before. Maybe New York won’t think about it because they don’t want to, but I know what he looked like, and what he sounded like, and he was  _ just like you _ .”

 

“I— I, uh,” Miles stares at her, dumbstruck. “I’m not a teenager?” It sounds weak, even to his own ears, but it makes Mary Jane laugh aloud. The intensity fades from her face and is replaced by something lingering on the border of amusement and affection.

 

“Okay, Spider-Man,” She gives him a smile, eyes crinkling. “But just know that I’m here as a resource for you. If you have any questions about Peter, or about Spider-Man, or… anything, you can come to me. I want to help.”

 

“Uh, okay,” Miles feels a smile rising back to his own face. “Thanks, Mrs. Parker.”

 

“Call me MJ,” She insists, and his expression shifts to a grin.

 

“MJ,” He agrees, and he thrusts a hand out towards her, which she accepts in a firm shake. “I’m Miles.”


End file.
